Microsoft’s Surface Tablet May Have Been Saved by Christmas

More than a few Microsoft Surface tablets were found under holiday trees this year, according to new figures. Photo: Josh Valcarcel/WIRED

The year has started on a surprisingly positive note for Microsoft. According to a new report, the company’s Surface tablets were found under more than a few trees this Christmas.

The share of tablet web traffic generated by Surfaces jumped a full half-percent after Christmas, according to an analysis by online advertising network Chitika.

That might not sound like much, but considering the Surface’s overall minuscule share of the tablet market, it’s a big gain. It brings Microsoft’s overall traffic share in the U.S. and Canada to 2.3 percent, up from just 0.4 percent at the same time last year, Chitika said. What’s more, the boost put Microsoft ahead of Google-made tablets, which accounted for just a 2 percent share of tablet web traffic over the holidays.

Chitika gets its data by tracking the devices on which ads from its network appear, comparing traffic on the days before and after Christmas. This could skew its results depending on which websites display its ads. But the company claims to serve 4 billion ads a month, which should make for a pretty decent sketch of device usage.

Amazon’s tablets saw the other most notable post-Christmas gain, up 0.6 percent to a more than 9 percent share of total tablet web traffic. The uptick helped Amazon easily keep its spot as the second—most-used tablet overall. Unsurprisingly, the top tablet was Apple’s iPad, which, though more expensive, accounted for more than three-quarters of web traffic. More surprisingly, that share dropped by more than a percentage point from its pre-Christmas share.

News of the Surface surge should bring some cheer to the Redmond faithful after Microsoft’s $900 million write down last summer due to poor sales of its first-generation tablet. More recently, Microsoft suggested the Surface 2 was doing better, though the math was still a little fuzzy about what was going on. These latest figures would seem to back up Microsoft’s assertions. But at this rate, it will still take decades of Christmases before the Surface comes anywhere close to unseating the iPad — the Apple gift that keeps on giving.